


Horror Route - Bad End (Felix)

by ikvros2



Series: Dimilix Spiderweb 2020 [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Choose Your Own Adventure, Halloween, M/M, Possession, Reincarnation, Sharing a Body, or: cf!felix has been waiting a long time for revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:22:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27664664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikvros2/pseuds/ikvros2
Summary: And then Felix feels it. He feels it like a limb tearing from his body, the vibration of the rip, the split of his consciousness. One second he is the sole inhabitant of his body, and the next he isn’t; shoved aside like he’s nothing, contained and weighed down by a presence that is heavy and dark and not human—not completely. But it does have a voice, a face. A familiar face. Hands that search, fingers and nails that dig in and pull.One of the ending segments for Dimilix Spiderweb 2020. Experience the interactive (& illustrated!) storyhere!
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Series: Dimilix Spiderweb 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2022794
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10
Collections: Dimilix Spiderweb 2020





	Horror Route - Bad End (Felix)

**Author's Note:**

> happy late halloween! this is one of my contributions to dimilix spiderweb and one ending segment of the horror path.
> 
> i highly recommend [downloading the game](https://dimilixweb.itch.io/spiderweb2020) or playing the web version to experience this beautiful project in full - it has music, sound effects, integrated illustrations, and the cutest interface you ever did see. [slip](https://twitter.com/slip_fe3h) did an incredible job putting it together. huge shoutout to [eza](https://twitter.com/eznochi), also, for organizing this event, and to all of my wonderful and talented co-contributors! here on ao3, you can:
> 
> \- [go back](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27461230) to the very beginning  
> \- [go back](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27473431) to the horror path intro (who notices the sword?)  
> \- [go back](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27534583) one segment (the talk goes well, or it doesn't!)
> 
> the stunning art for this segment can only be seen via the game *eyes emoji* so...u know. PLAY IT ♡

Dimitri’s brows pull together. "I’ve been here the entire time, Felix. I’m not going anywhere."

"Liar," Felix scoffs. "From the moment I saw you during the rebellion, I knew you were gone. They killed Lambert, and then something crawled inside you and took your place. Was it magic? Did Cornelia get to you, too? Or is this just who you were always born to become? All I ever wanted was to know the truth. I want to know it now, before I skewer you."

"Lambert? Are you talking about my father?"

"Who else? Your father, the late king," Felix snaps. 

"Felix," Dimitri says. He’s gone a little pale. "My father isn't dead. And he’s not…a king. He’s a doctor, remember?" 

Felix exhales. He says, "What."

His head is pounding—there are memories like little sparks in his head, entwining pictures that bend and snap and twist together again. A palace courtyard in the summer, the smell of armor polish, the weight of his first Zoltan blade in his hand. Skiing in Goneril with Sylvain and Ingrid, the time he and Dimitri almost kissed in the resort lounge with numb lips and ruddy faces. Riding on his father’s shoulders up the steps of the Gautier estate. A scraped knee, antiseptic. The battle at Gronder Field, the corpses strewn across it. Blood and snow angels. 

"Please," Dimitri says. "Something’s wrong, you’re confused—let me help you. Let’s leave the party. I’ll take you to my father—" 

Felix grits his teeth. _"Confused?_ There is nothing to confuse. Even now, you deny me an explanation. There’s nothing left to say.\" Felix draws the sword back, muscles moving to memory, coiling in perfect tandem. He won’t miss, this time—he’s sure of it. "This is where you die, boar."

"Felix—!" 

_NO—_

And then Felix feels it. He feels it like a limb tearing from his body, the vibration of the rip, the split of his consciousness. One second he is the sole inhabitant of his body, and the next he isn’t; shoved aside like he’s nothing, contained and weighed down by a presence that is heavy and dark and not human—not completely. But it does have a voice, a face. A familiar face. Hands that search, fingers and nails that dig in and pull.

Dimitri is wide-eyed at the tip of the blade, but unharmed. The presence calms, after a moment, settles into the space where Felix should be. He tries to open his mouth, to tell Dimitri something isn’t right—to ask for help.

"The look on your face is priceless," a man who is not him—the imposter—says instead. He lowers the sword.

Dimitri, white as a sheet, sags a little against the wall. His voice, when it comes, is little more than an exhale. "What."

"Relax. It was all in jest," the imposter says. "I mean—it was a joke."

"…A joke," Dimitri repeats. 

The imposter grins, and it feels sharp. Like there’s more teeth than there needs to be. "I just wanted to scare you. It’s Halloween, isn’t it?"

A dozen emotions flicker across Dimitri’s face as he allows the idea to sweep over him—fear, surprise, contemplation—there’s hurt, and then anger. And relief, of course. 

"Felix," Dimitri says, and it sounds very nearly like a growl. The imposter bristles. "That was not _funny._ The look on your face, in your eyes, I—it really looked like—ah, damn you." He sinks down onto a dust-coated chair, covering his face with his hands. 

The imposter looks on warily, grip tensing around the blade when Dimitri’s shoulders begin to shake. Softly at first, a gentle rise and fall that almost looks like heavy breath. Felix worries that he’s hyperventilating; it’s happened before—not since they were kids, but even still. He would never think to do something as cruel and tasteless as this to Dimitri, would never dream of risking it.

But then it sounds—a whoosh of air, a voice, melted, clear as a bell. Felix has always loved Dimitri’s laugh, but hearing it now breaks his heart.

Dimitri’s hands fall from his face. His grin is open, earnest, no condemnation in it. He forgives too easily. _don’t fall for it,_ Felix pleads.

"Well, you certainly got me. I don’t think I’ve been truly frightened like that since—I can’t even remember. Goddess. How did you keep a straight face?"

"It wasn’t easy," the imposter says stiffly.

"Did you plan _all_ of this?"

The imposter arches an eyebrow. "This?"

Dimitri’s still smiling like an idiot, shaking his head. "Felix, do you even really have a flat?"

"…Yes," the imposter says, reaching in, in, in, and tearing the memory free. Felix cannot stop him from probing his mind; he can only watch on through the wavering veil of the imposter’s vision, Dimitri the sun through water. Felix reaches for control, and it slips as easily through his fingers. "That was just a really convenient coincidence."

"And the painting. The sword? Are Claude and Annette in on this as well?"

The imposter recognizes these names. Felix feels it in him like a jolt, surprise and curiosity entwined.

"I had the painting privately commissioned," he says, and Dimitri looks delighted at that. More of that searching, pulling, prodding—Felix’s mind might as well be a bag with a velcro closure. "I just asked Claude if I could use his creepy old house to set the scene."

"And Annette to lock us in together," Dimitri says, like he has it all figured out. "How elaborate. I’m impressed."

"The sword is part of my costume," the imposter says. He holds it close to his body, like it’s something precious. 

"Ah, costumes. I suppose we’re still expected to change before we return. What shall I be?" Dimitri stands and walks toward the mounted painting, inspecting it more closely. "What am I here?"

It’s a beautiful painting. It’s old as time, but the colors are vivid and smooth as the day they were smeared across a palette. The green and the red, the grass and the blood, the royal blue of a cloak, the glint of a sword. It isn’t him and Dimitri; it can’t be, not in this lifetime. And yet Felix looks through the imposter’s eyes and sees the past, feels the weight of it, feels the grief and the rage through the thinnest lining.

"You’re the Tempest King," the imposter says, and Felix feels the truth of it like ice in his veins. "Soon to be felled, just like your kingdom."

The imposter’s anger is coiled tightly around what Felix knows, down to his marrow, are memories. Felix presses into them, his will a hot knife but for a moment.

He smells the burning rot of the battlefield; hears the horrible wails of falling wyverns and men; feels his blade cutting through flesh, the sick resistance of bone and organs, the spray of the kill. He feels the desire, the thirst of it. He sees Dimitri painted in blood instead of oils, the frantic blue of his eye, his knees in the dirt. 

Dimitri’s mouth parts around a plea. Felix raises his blade.

"There’s a whole made-up _story_ behind this? Us? In a different era?"

The imposter violently shoves Felix out of his thoughts. "Yeah. Well. The painter—he has an active imagination. He ran with it, I guess. Artists."

"Alright. So, I’m the…Tempest King. Who does that make you? The opposing king?"

The imposter snorts. "No, not a king. I’m supposedly the lapdog of an emperor. But I have an important job to do."

"Oh?"

"The king is a monster. A beast," the imposter explains. "One that has long needed to be put out of his misery."

"That’s pretty dark," Dimitri observes. "Do you? Put me out of my misery?"

"No," the imposter says. "I hesitate for just a moment. And then I get a lance through the heart. You kill me first."

Dimitri glances back at him. "I see. Why do you hesitate?"

"I make the mistake of remembering you as you were."

"Before I was a monster?"

"You’ve always been a monster," the imposter says darkly. "I guess you just kept it buried."

"This is all…very imaginative," Dimitri says, looking at him with concern and not a hint of suspicion, because he’s Dimitri and Felix is supposed to be _Felix,_ his lifelong best friend. "Are you sure you’re feeling alright?"

Felix wants to scream, to shake Dimitri by the shoulders and say {i} _it’s not me it’s not me how don’t you know this isn’t me._ He wants to say _you’re in danger_ and _he’ll kill you_ and _you have no sense of self preservation_ but he _can’t,_ because he is a motionless passenger in his own head, and he doesn’t know if that’s better or worse than ceasing to exist at all.

 **_Shut up,_ ** the imposter tells him.

"I’m fine," the imposter says out loud, feigning embarrassment. "Guess I’m still in character." The precise downturn of his lips feels familiar, exactly the expression Felix might make if this wasn’t a complete fucking charade. The imposter isn’t Felix beyond the skin he wears, but he _is,_ somehow. 

And he has been waiting for this for a long time.

Dimitri laughs again, unaware, an easy sound. "You pulled it off well. I wasn’t aware you had such a penchant for method acting. Perhaps you’re on the wrong career path."

_get out get out get out give me my body back_

**_I won’t._ **

_don’t fucking touch him_

**_Not now. It’s not complete yet._ **

"I’m happy with where I’m at."

"Mm," Dimitri hums. He’s looking at the painting again. "Don’t tell me—this looks like…but no, that can’t be right."

"What?"

"Do you see the signature, there? Does it not look like Victor’s? The painter from ancient Leicester. I only remember it so well because our art history professor—"

"Had that giant replica of _The Goddess Divine_ hanging on the wall all semester," the imposter says, like he’s amused by this; like it’s a memory he’s lived and not stolen. "This guy loves his work. Thought it would be fitting."

Dimitri looks on in awe. "You truly went above and beyond. Who did you commission for this?"

The imposter shrugs and lies. He lies so easily. "Just some guy Glenn went to college with."

"What remarkable talent. It’s as if we’re really there."

A tendril of anger flickers inside Felix’s—the imposter’s—chest.

"Yeah. Well, I’ve had my fun," he says. "We should get back to the party before Annette drags us out herself. I’ll come back for this later."

_stay away from my friends_

**_I must find Areadbhar. Once I find it, I can carry out what I was supposed to do long ago. I will return your body to you after that._ **

_what are you going to do_

**_I will bring the boar to the surface, just as I have surfaced in you. Then I’ll kill him._ **

_if you kill the boar does that mean that—_

**_Your…beloved…will die, too, yes._ **

_NO—_

"Alright," Dimitri says, and Felix {i}pushes pushes pushes and finds no stronghold. He knows the imposter feels his efforts despite this; his irritation flares like an infected wound.

**_Stop it. Do you honestly believe it could have worked between you? Do you think you could have been happy together? You’re forever cursed. This is old magic. History will repeat itself until I right it._ **

Felix thinks he understands, then.

_you are me_

**_And I am you. There have been others, across time. You’ve done what they could not, finding the sword. You’ve come further than they ever have. You have my gratitude._ **

_i won’t let you do this_

**_You don’t have a choice. It’s him or us. It always has been._ **

"Felix? Are you coming?"

_you’re wrong you don’t know what you’re talking about dimitri would never hurt me or anyone else_

"Yeah," the imposter says. Felix wills his legs to stay glued to the spot, but they move anyway, following Dimitri to the door with the warm yellow light underneath. To their friends, to their world. The sword is a heavy weight in his hand. He wants to scream; no sound comes out. The imposter bears down on him.

**_Every him kills every you, in every life. But things will be different this time._ **

Dimitri opens the door, and the imposter follows him through.


End file.
